February 2009

Welcome to the February 2009 issue of SIPRI Update: Global Security & Arms Control. This monthly newsletter is your source for the latest developments in international security, arms control, non-proliferation and conflict, including recent SIPRI activities and publications.

In this issue:

• Gunilla Herolf writes on coming tests for transatlantic security relations
• SIPRI announces new presence in Beijing, Brussels and Washington, DC
• Recent SIPRI events
• Forthcoming SIPRI events
• SIPRI in the media
• SIPRI job openings
• SIPRI fact of the month
• SIPRI’s latest publications
  • The CFE Treaty One Year after its Unilateral Suspension
  • Reporting Transfers of Small Arms and Light Weapons to UNROCA, 2007
  • China's Expanding Peacekeeping Role
  • Chemical and Biochemical Non-lethal Weapons
  • SIPRI Yearbook 2008

Gunilla Herolf, SIPRI Senior Researcher

A renewed atmosphere of friendship and willingness to cooperate is apparent in relations between Europe and the United States. US Vice-President Joe Biden, in his speech at the 2009 Munich Security Conference, set out the USA’s position: ‘We will engage. We will listen. We will consult. America needs the world, just as I believe the world needs America.’ In the same vein, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy asserted, in a joint article published in the run-up to the Munich conference, that Europe and the USA needed each other and warned that unilateral decision making by the USA would contradict the new multilateralist spirit of transatlantic relations. The question is whether, for all the good intentions, today’s rapport will withstand the pressures of differing interests on either side of the Atlantic.

Continue reading . . .

In early March, SIPRI plans to open a Brussels office, co-located with the International Security Information Service (ISIS Europe).

In addition, SIPRI has appointed Linda Jakobson as Senior Researcher in SIPRI’s new China and Global Security Programme. Based in Beijing, Jakobson will take up the position on 1 March. From 1998 to 2009, Jakobson worked for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), most recently as Senior Researcher and Director of its China programme. She has lived and worked in China for over 15 years and has published six books and dozens of articles in English, Finnish and Swedish on Chinese foreign policy and transforming society.

Plans are also afoot in 2009 to establish ‘American Friends of SIPRI’, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, which will work with SIPRI and other partners to broaden transatlantic understanding and common ground on pressing issues of global security, stability and peace.

For more information, contact Stephanie Blenckner, SIPRI Communications Officer, and read the press release here.

SIPRI Researcher Chin-hao Huang was interviewed by AFP Beijing on China’s relationship with South-East Asia and on Think Globally Radio in a programme on China, Africa and Global Security.

SIPRI Senior Researcher Shannon Kile was interviewed by the Azerbaijani news agency TREND on the issue of new IAEA assessments of low-enriched uranium stocks in Iran.

TREND also interviewed SIPRI Research Coordinator Dr Ian Anthony and SIPRI Researcher Vitaly Fedchenko on Russian and US positions on nuclear arms.

SIPRI statistics on major armed conflicts were quoted and illustrated in The Economist.

SIPRI Senior Researcher Pieter Wezeman was interviewed by Swedish Television TV8 on arms supplies to Israel and Hamas. He was earlier also interviewed on the issue of a Somali pirate vessel carrying a controversial arms cargo by Voice of America, and The Hawaii Reporter.

SIPRI Senior Researcher Ekaterina Stepanova was interviewed by Swedish Radio on trends in armed conflicts (text version). She also gave an interview to Vedomosti Smart Money (Moscow) on the potential impact of the global financial crisis on patterns of organized collective violence, published on Vedomosti Smart Money .

One year after Russia’s unilateral suspension of the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), it is time to reassess the condition and prospects of the CFE regime. This Policy Brief gives an overview of the issues that have dogged the CFE process and that led up to the Russian action. It outlines the situation that the parties to the treaty find themselves in now and assesses the prospects for conventional arms control in Europe.

This paper details and analyses UN member states’ reporting of international transfers of small arms and light weapons (SALW) to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) for 2007. It complements a similar study that covers the years 2003–2006. It concludes that the level of reporting on international transfers of SALW is now high enough that the UNROCA Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) should reconsider the establishment of a new, eighth UNROCA category of SALW. The paper gives recommendations on how the new category could be established and how it would function.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of China’s first contributions to a UN peacekeeping operation. This Policy Brief examines the dramatic expansion in Chinese involvement in UN peacekeeping activities and makes recommendations to the international community on how to engage with China in order to strengthen its commitment to regional stability, ensure greater convergence between Chinese and other international interests on questions of regional security, and encourage more effective international peacekeeping operations.

Non-lethal weapons are intended to incapacitate personnel or matériel without injuring people. This Policy Paper describes and analyses biological and chemical substances that have the potential to be used as weapons or can improve the efficacy of other, more traditional, weapons. Potential loopholes in the international prohibitions against chemical and biological warfare are presented together with practical, politically feasible and technically useful policy options.

Chemical and biological substances may be used to incapacitate or influence human behaviour and can be used in both wars and other conflict situations, including for peacekeeping and some counterterrorism operations. The possible applications of science and technology for developing such agents are also expanding. This Policy Paper strikes the right balance between scientific detail and reader-friendliness to inform both the specialist and the generalist on this emergent and complex issue.

For information on SIPRI’s other recent and forthcoming books, visit the SIPRI Publications website, books.sipri.org

Other recent publications by SIPRI authors